Ohio State Reformatory

At a glance

Overview

The Ohio State Reformatory is a former state prison on the north side of Mansfield, created by an 1884 act of the Ohio Legislature as the Intermediate Penitentiary, a prison-and-school for young first offenders that would sit between the Boys' Industrial School and the Ohio Penitentiary. Cleveland architect Levi T. Scofield designed it, the cornerstone was laid on November 4, 1886, and after years of stalled state funding it received its first 150 prisoners in September 1896; the complex was substantially complete by 1910. From the early 1960s the state turned it into a maximum-security prison it was never built to be, and an inmates' lawsuit filed in 1978 led to its closure in 1990. Most outbuildings and the stone wall were demolished after 1993, but the main building was turned over to the Mansfield Reformatory Preservation Society, formed in 1995. It is best known as the principal filming location for The Shawshank Redemption (shot in 1993) and houses the Ohio corrections museum.

The name

Created as the Intermediate Penitentiary, because it was meant to fill the gap in Ohio's penal system between the Boys' Industrial School and the Ohio Penitentiary. A law of April 24, 1891, drafted by Gen. Roeliff Brinkerhoff, renamed it the Ohio State Reformatory. The popular name Mansfield Reformatory comes from its city. (source)

Native American history

Nothing Native American is recorded at the reformatory site itself. A. J. Baughman's 1908 county history says the Sandusky trail, the route Moravian missionaries traveled between Gnadenhutten and the Wyandot country, passed through the ground where Mansfield now stands, and that for the thirty years the Indian village of Greentown stood on the Black Fork of the Mohican, white captives were brought through it, halted there overnight and then taken on past the site of Mansfield toward the Sandusky country. The 1880 county history places Greentown in the part of old Richland County assigned to the Delawares (Lenape), and records that the Delawares ceded their remaining reservation at Little Sandusky on August 3, 1829, and removed west of the Mississippi. Baughman also notes that mound builders' works exist within Richland County, without naming any at this site. No treaty cession specific to this parcel was found.

• Sandusky trail (Pittsburgh-Sandusky trail): trail, Passed through the site of Mansfield on the way from the Tuscarawas and Mohican country to the Wyandot towns on the Sandusky, 1770s to about 1812
• Greentown: village, Section 18, Green Township, on the Black Fork of the Mohican (then in Richland County, now Ashland County), c. 1783-1812

Stories

The prison the legislature nearly sold

Mansfield won the new Intermediate Penitentiary in 1885 after a contest among several cities, by raising $10,000 to hand the state 30 acres. The cornerstone went down in November 1886 before Sen. John Sherman, Gov. Foraker and ex-President Hayes, but the state was short of money. In 1888 and 1889 the legislature appropriated nothing and work stopped. By 1890 a majority of the House wanted to sell the property or turn it into an insane asylum. Richland County's representative, C. M. Gaumer, scraped together $50,000 to keep it alive, and then Mansfield citizens took the entire legislature by train to see the New York State Reformatory at Elmira, the model for the Ohio plan. The legislators came home convinced; the next appropriation was $180,000, and the question of whether Ohio would have a reformatory was settled. (source)

Frenchy's rock garden

Emil 'Frenchy' Balanescu arrived in 1927, convicted of murdering his girlfriend Dorothy and sentenced to 20 years; he insisted for the rest of his life that he had not killed her and kept a small shrine to her in his cell. A model inmate, he was put in charge of building a rock garden around the pond in front of the prison, work that began on September 20, 1930. With no landscaping training he laid out walks along the water, a cascade, a miniature mill and beds filled from the prison greenhouses, and by June 1932 visitors were coming from across the country; the garden appeared on postcards. Offered parole, he refused it, believing acceptance would be an admission of guilt. After a permitted visit to his dying mother he was not allowed back, and he stayed in Mansfield as a landscaper for wealthy families. Parts of his stonework still stand around the pond. (source)

A tree that died on set

Tango & Cash was shot at the reformatory in 1988 while it was still a working prison, with inmates keeping to their routines and guards serving as extras. The escape scene called for heavy rain on a clear night, so a water truck made the storm. A full-size tree was planted beside the outer wall so the actors could throw a rope to it and slide down on their belts, and the crew had to hurry because the tree began dying soon after it went in. As a former inmate later told the story, another prisoner boasted of breaking into Sylvester Stallone's trailer and taking the belt used in the scene, and when asked whether he wanted it as a souvenir said no, he just wanted a better belt. (source)

The warden's family

Arthur L. Glattke ran the reformatory from 1935 to 1959, longer than any other warden, and lived on the grounds with his wife Helen and two sons. On a Sunday morning in 1950 Helen reached into a closet and her husband's pistol fell from the shelf, discharged when it hit the floor and struck her in the lung; she died of the wound. In 1959 Glattke suffered a heart attack in his office and died. According to the story told by the reformatory's paranormal program manager, visitors sometimes smell rose water, the perfume Helen made, near her old bedroom, and the cherry pipe tobacco Glattke smoked; these are legends, not records. (source)

Saved by Shawshank

The reformatory was never meant to hold more than about 1,900 men; its program director says that at its worst it held closer to 3,500. An inmates' lawsuit in 1978 accused it of brutal and inhumane conditions, and by 1990 it was closed and sat empty. In 1993 director Frank Darabont chose it as the location for his film of Stephen King's 1982 novella, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. The program director has said that when the Castle Rock crew arrived the first morning, the wrecking ball was already standing outside, and that the building would very likely not exist if it had not been chosen. Area residents later lobbied to take it over and restore it. (source)

The resin doorknobs

Architect Levi Scofield's specifications called for brass doorknobs bearing the state coat of arms, the seal of Ohio, on the doors of the front building, which held the administrative offices and staff living quarters. The knobs were tempting to steal, and by the reformatory's archivist's account from oral histories, both inmates and guards took them to sell for the brass. By the 1960s guards were sent around the administrative areas to remove them for safekeeping, and after the prison closed they ended up boxed at the new Mansfield Correctional Institution. When Frank Darabont's crew arrived to film The Shawshank Redemption it needed doorknobs for its shots, so it obtained one original and cast resin copies from it for the doors seen on screen. (source)

Deaths inside the walls

Though meant for young first offenders, the reformatory saw real violence. Guard Urban Wilford, 72, was shot on November 2, 1926, by a paroled former inmate in a failed escape attempt, and guard Frank Hanger, 48, was beaten to death with an iron bar on October 2, 1932, during a twelve-man escape attempt; three of the killers went to the electric chair. On July 21, 1948, two former inmates, John West and Robert Daniels, abducted the prison farm superintendent, his wife and their 20-year-old daughter and killed them in a cornfield off Fleming Falls Road; West died in a shootout near Van Wert and Daniels was executed. The prison cemetery beyond the old wall holds more than 200 men who died while serving their sentences. (source)

Timeline

• 1861: Camp Mordecai Bartley, named for the Mansfield man who had been Ohio governor, was laid out on the Tingley farm at Mansfield in August to train the 32nd and then the 15th Ohio Infantry; later accounts place this camp on the ground where the reformatory was built (Wikipedia gives the year as 1862). (source)
• 1884: On April 14 the Ohio Legislature passed the law creating the Intermediate Penitentiary, and Gov. George Hoadly appointed a three-man board of managers to choose a site. (source)
• 1885: On June 2 the board fixed the location at Mansfield after citizens raised $10,000 to buy and donate 30 acres; the state bought an adjoining 150 acres for $20,000. (source)
• 1885: F. F. Schnitzer of Delaware was appointed superintendent of construction on July 13, grading began July 21, and Levi T. Scofield of Cleveland was named architect. (source)
• 1886: The first building contract went to Hancock & Dow of Mansfield on June 9, and on November 4 the cornerstone was laid with Sen. John Sherman presiding and Gov. J. B. Foraker and ex-President Rutherford B. Hayes speaking. (source)
• 1888: The legislature made no appropriation in 1888 or 1889, work stopped for two years, and the state came close to abandoning the project. (source)
• 1890: Richland County Rep. C. M. Gaumer won a $50,000 appropriation, and Mansfield citizens then took the whole legislature to see the Elmira Reformatory in New York, after which $180,000 was granted and opposition ended. (source)
• 1891: A law of April 24 renamed the Intermediate Penitentiary the Ohio State Reformatory and made its board non-partisan. (source)
• 1896: The reformatory formally opened on September 15 under Superintendent W. D. Patterson, and 150 prisoners arrived by special train from the Ohio Penitentiary (September 16 per Baughman; the Ohio Exploration Society gives September 17). (source)
• 1901: J. A. Leonard of Youngstown became superintendent in February; under him inmate trade classes built six large brick buildings and a steel cell block without outside contractors. (source)
• 1910: Construction, begun in 1886, was completed. (source)
• 1926: On November 2 a paroled former inmate returned and shot 72-year-old guard Urban Wilford in a failed escape attempt; the killer, Philip Orleck, was executed a year later. (source)
• 1930: After the deadly fire at the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus, 266 surviving inmates were moved to Mansfield and, with no room in the cell blocks, housed in a windowless attic. (source)
• 1930: On September 20 inmate Emil 'Frenchy' Balanescu began building a rock garden around the pond in front of the prison; by June 1932 it was drawing visitors and appeared on postcards. (source)
• 1932: On October 2 guard Frank Hanger, 48, was beaten to death with an iron bar during an escape attempt by twelve prisoners; two inmates were executed for it in 1935. (source)
• 1935: Arthur L. Glattke became warden, serving until 1959, the longest tenure of any warden, and lived on the grounds with his wife Helen and two sons. (source)
• 1948: On July 21 two former inmates, John West and Robert Daniels, kidnapped the prison farm superintendent, his wife and their daughter and murdered them off Fleming Falls Road, the start of a two-week spree that left six dead. (source)
• 1950: Helen Glattke was fatally wounded when her husband's pistol fell from a closet shelf and discharged. (source)
• 1959: Warden Arthur Glattke died after a heart attack in his office. (source)
• early 1960s: The state withdrew support for the reform model and began converting the reformatory into a maximum-security prison. (source)
• 1975: Harry and Walter Go to New York was filmed at the still-operating prison. (source)
• 1978: Inmates filed a lawsuit over overcrowding and inhumane conditions (Boyd v. Denton), which led to a federal consent decree ordering the prison closed. (source)
• 1983: The reformatory was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on April 14 (reference 83002039). (source)
• 1988: Tango & Cash, starring Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell, was filmed while inmates were still living there, with guards serving as extras. (source)
• 1990: The reformatory closed in December; its replacement, the Mansfield Correctional Institution, stands just to the west. (source)
• 1993: Director Frank Darabont filmed The Shawshank Redemption at the empty prison, which played Shawshank State Prison. (source)
• 1995: After the state demolished the outbuildings and the prison wall, the land was turned over to a preservation group, the Mansfield Reformatory Preservation Society. (source)
• 1996: Air Force One was filmed at the prison, and a false prison wall made of wood was built for it. (source)
• 2019: On November 25 and 26 Warner Bros. filmed prison scenes for Judas and the Black Messiah at the reformatory. (source)
• 2024: A Shawshank Redemption 30th-anniversary celebration was held August 9 to 11 with the director, cast and crew. (source)

Sources

• en.wikipedia.org: Ohio State Reformatory
• archive.org: historyofrichlan01baug djvu.txt
• archive.org: historyofrichlan00grah djvu.txt
• wosu.org: ghost stories of the shawshank redemption prison live on in mansfield
• mrps.org: our story
• mrps.org: the rock garden of the ohio state reformatory
• mrps.org: all is not what it seems
• mrps.org: its all in the turn
• mrps.org: restoring history
• mrps.org: please wipe your feet
• mrps.org: ohio corrections museum
• ohioexploration.com: osr
• loc.gov
• mansfieldnewsjournal.com
• shawshanktrail.com